Sunday, October 4, 2009

"Ella" patters beautifully in Pittsburgh

"Ella," the season-opening play at Pittsburgh Public Theater, bears some resemblance to an older production about Billie Holiday, but it ends on a happier note.

By Scott Beveridge

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – Ella Fitzgerald doesn’t do chatting between songs, a gimmick that is better suited to such performers as "Lady Day" Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra.

Holiday has something interesting to say on stage because she’s lived through more than enough drama with a drug addiction and string of bad men to drip melancholy with the blues, according to a play underway in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Fitzgerald is known as “the good one” because she never captures headlines for making bad choices, says actress Tina Fabrique, who lends her perfect-pitched voice to “Ella,” a hit play that is opening the 2009-10 season at Pittsburgh Public Theater.

“Lady Day does patter,” Fabrique said while her character’s manager urges her to cut a song in an upcoming concert lineup to make time to talk to the audience in Nice, France.

It’s 1966, two days after Fitzgerald buried her beloved sister, Frances, and the crowd not only wants to hear her voice, but needs to know if she’s OK, the manager, Norman Granz, explains during rehearsals.

Directed and co-conceived by Rob Ruggiero, the Public’s showing of “Ella” is the 20th time this two-act play has gone to production since it’s world premier in 2005 at TheaterWorks in Hartford, Conn.

There can be no doubt that Ruggiero’s “Ella” draws its inspiration from “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill,” a play about jazz singer Billie Holiday by Lanie Robertson that took the stage at the Public in 1995.

Both stories are told in similar fashion between songs about black women who crossed racial boundaries to make hit records. But while “Lady Day” that starred Debra Tidwell is a story about self destruction, “Ella” leaves the stage on a good note and without the singer having to turn to heroin to get through the show.

And, Fabrique seems to channel the late Fitzgerald with every slight degree.

The first act takes the audience to the rehearsal for the Nice concert where Fabrique is wearing an ordinarily black dress suited for a funeral. It doesn’t take long, though, for the story line to reveal some of Fitzgerald’s darkest moments that defined her sultry voice and made her the “First Lady of Song.”

The story touches on the time Fitzgerald spent in a New York reform school after her mother died young, how she escaped it only to be molested by her stepfather and then went to work for a pimp dancing on the street to lure customers into his brothel.

A new manager – Norman Granz – eventually helps to make Ella a star by encouraging her to sing scat, or improvised music where random syllables mimic the sounds of the instruments.

“I’m no glamor puss Mr. Granz but I will sing you songs that barely have a word,” she says at the prospect of playing Carnegie Hall.

Fitzgerald would go on to perform on that esteemed New York stage 26 times before her death in 1996 at 81 from complications of heart disease and diabetes.

Meanwhile, Fabrique belts out 23 Fitzgerald favorites in vocal a range that allows the audience to pretend for just two hours that maybe Ella is still alive.

Her version of “Something to Live For” is the song from this show to remember.

It comes near the end when Ella – dressed in a sparkling blue ballgown - cries uncontrollably over the loss of a sister, while also acknowledging her shortcomings as a mother. The spotlight shifts to a fantastic trumpet player, Ron Haynes, only to reappear moments later on the star at the microphone after she regains her composure, knowing the stage is her one true love.

Fabrique takes the song home, delivering Ella on stage in a performance that is worth seeing a second time before the final curtain is drawn November 1 on this production.More info: www.ppt.org or 412-316-1600.

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About Scott Beveridge

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Welcome to Travel with a Beveridge. Most of the stories, photographs and videos on these pages are the work of Scott Beveridge, an award-winning writer and photographer at the Observer-Reporter newspaper in Washington, Pa. He takes his morning coffee strong, preferably brewed with fresh-ground Sumatra beans, drives a Ford and looks for weird things.

This blog also is a place to promote the work of aspiring young writers and showcase occasional stories written by established scribes. Thank you for pulling up: Grab a stool and make yourself comfortable.

More information about this blogger can be found at his Linkedin and Facebook accounts

"The Gamble on Donora Steel" is an occasional series by Scott Beveridge about the history of steel manufacturing in Donora, Pa.

Industrialists had taken a chance by investing in sprawling steel, wire and zinc mills on the western banks of the Monongahela River in what would become known as Donora, Pa., in 1901. Little did they know that an environmental disaster combined with difficult labor relations would cause this complex to become the first of its kind to permanently shut down decades later in the fall of America's Industrial Revolution. The short stories about the rise and decline of this borough, mostly drawn from headlines in the local newspaper, appear under the following links:

WELCOME TO NOWHERE

Scott Beveridge grew up in Webster, Pa., a village along the Monongahela River that experienced one of worst environmental nightmares in the United States. His family moved there in 1960 about the same time the nearby zinc and steel mills ceased production. Those mill furnaces were to blame for the damages that awoke America to the dangers of air pollution. After their demise, the grass and trees began to return to the barren landscape that appeared as if it belonged on the moon. His short stories about that adventure appear under these links:
Introduction: The warning signs were there

The artichoke dream

Scott sends dirty clothes home when on the road

If you are like him when you travel, your clothes seem to take up more space in your suitcase after you have worn them. Take a tip from Scotty and mail yourself a package home filled with those dirty socks, underwear and T-shirts after you have been on the road for five or six days. You can buy a box and enough postage at the post office for less than $15. Postal workers seem to get a kick out of the idea, and they will even help you fold your box and tape it closed, too. Seek out a post office in a small town, where the workers have more time to gossip, while driving to a tourist destination. Now, you have room in your carryon to cart home your souvenirs, without having to worry about them getting broken or flown to St. Louis when your switchover is aiming for Pittsburgh.

He also hates road warriors; prefers to chill on down time

The successful traveler packs a personality blessed with patience and some understanding of the road.

Scott says do everyone a favor and STAY HOME if you are an anal retentive, control freak who spends far too much time complaining about life. When traveling, folks always take the risk of flight delays and cultural misunderstandings, or having companions who don’t wear watches or luggage and could land in Macon, Ga., when they are flying to Istanbul.

So keep a book or two in your carryon in case you are stuck in the airport in Haiti while rebels are burning tires in the streets and preventing the pilot from reaching the cockpit of your plane. That bag should also carry any prescription drugs you need, deodorant and toothpaste, along with a toothbrush, clean pair of underwear and T-shirt.

When you arrive, please don't linger in your hotel room. Go outside to meet interesting people. You can sleep when you get home.

Always take a moment to sit down and remove your shoes, like the old man in Hanoi, who is shown in the above photograph at the Temple of Literature in Hanoi.

And before you fly overseas, please check with the U.S. Department of State to find out which countries hate Americans the most.